Convenience Stories: Humans Need Contact

I have been planning to write some stories about my experiences working in convenience stores. But too lazy 😤

Okay, here is my first story.

A little introduction about me, so currently I'm working in convenience store (guess what is it) and located near the most famous tourist attraction in Kyoto, Gion and Kiyomizu-dera Temple. Before the pandemic, half of the customers were foreign tourists. But now I'm not going to talk about the customers. I am going to write about my partner at work.

There is a girl, who is working in my store, from China, she is my schoolmate, we were born in the same year, and we work(ed) (she stopped recently though) in other convenience store located inside Kyoto Station, but different branch. She is only two months older than me but she is way way more mature. She is so smart like she knows a lot of konbini (convenience store) life hacks and other life life hacks. If you want to know if there is any retail store or fast food restaurant giving freebies or discount, just ask her, like really. Since I am always sloppy at work, for example, putting 50 yen coin in 500 yen coin tray, or I dunno how to deal with new things (I am lazy to read kanji), she always help me.

I respect her so much. She is like one of smartest woman I know. As she almost don't use polite form to speak to customers, I always laugh when she serves the customers.

"ATATAME WA?" (Do you want us to heat this?)

"... WA NAI."

"ARIGATOU."

She never give an effort to speak in polite form or putting extra 'desu' in her sentences. I always giggle when I see her speaking like that 😂

Even before the Japanese people were concerned about the pandemic, she has already started her preparation. She sent thousand of face masks for her friends in China before shops applied purchase limit. She is always with her stick shape virus blocker and putting gloves on her hands. She even stopped working in Kyoto Station to avoid the infection. She is very updated with the world news.

One day, one of our partner had a fever and had to take a rest for a week. She was more careful since this guy's body temp was 38.5°C while he was at working. (The next day, he was fine though). So the next day, when we were on the same shift, she asked me to do social distance from her. Okay, that's what we should do, right?

I was busy washing fryer machine so I was basically more than 2 meters from her. Only after 15 minutes, we were talking, and I was more than 1 meter away, she touched my shoulder and pat of my hand 😂

I was like (I didn't say it out loud), "DID YOU JUST ASK ME TO KEEP OUR DISTANCE? AND NOW YOU TOUCHED ME?" 😂

She is type of person who will give light touch when talking to friends. It's her habit so maybe she didn't even realize that she touched me 😂

Well, despite of the social distancing rule, after all, humans need contact.

💙💙💙

As I enjoy my video call with my brother, I prefer to have him here, or I go to Indonesia. Currently, I want to go home after my cat who was away for more than two years returned home. Cat is so smart he still know his way home after wandering around... maybe the world?